About the School of Architecture

Original Lee Hall

Architecture has been taught at Clemson for almost a century. Today, the School of Architecture is meeting new 21st century challenges through pedagogical and technological advances, to provide design leadership in an expanding global environment. The School is part of a College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities along with the departments of Planning and Landscape Architecture, Art, Performing Arts, Construction Science, Philosophy and Religion, Languages, English, Communication Studies, and History.

The School offers a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Architecture degree with an enrollment of 270 students and a Master of Architecture degree with over 100 students. The M.S. in Architecture and the Ph.D. in Planning, Design and the Built Environment are offered as post-professional research degrees. The graduate program has a specialized option in Architecture and Health that is one of only two such programs in the country. The School's Fluid Campus, where students and faculty work in a variety of diverse physical, political and cultural settings, offers a uniquely rich global education. Students and professors regularly receive national recognition through numerous national and international awards including four straight years of a top 20 ranking by Design Intelligence Magazine.

The School of Architecture aims to be a premier producer of transformational architectural leadership, shaping the environment of the 21st century for a better future. Clemson's School of Architecture is an interconnected, geographically distributed community of teachers and learners, dedicated to:

Educating future architects, through rigorous and expansive design education, with local and global understandings of firmness, commodity and delight;

Generating knowledge to address the great challenges of the time, like health care, ecology, and an increasingly digital society, through innovative, interdisciplinary research, practice and scholarship;

Advocating for the improvement of built, natural and social environments, through design activism, public service and public education.

The M.Arch and the M.Arch. + Health programs of the School of Architecture are accredited accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. In the United States, most state registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit U.S. professional degree programs in architecture, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture (M. Arch.), and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted a 6-year, 3-year, or 2-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards. Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may consist of a pre-professional undergraduate degree and a professional graduate degree that, when earned sequentially, constitute an accredited professional education. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree. The Graduate Program offers the NAAB accredited M. Arch. degree with a Two-Year track for those with a pre-professional degree in architecture and a Three-Year track for those without a pre-professional degree. For more information see the Accreditation or Graduate Admissions pages.

Clemson University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the Bachelor's, Master's, Education Specialist, and Doctoral degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4097 or call at 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Clemson University.